On Goobues and Timelines.

I got into a huge rabbit hole of the Timeline of this game.
And it started with this Quest: One Final Journey.
Flhaminn <sigh> It was twenty years ago that Warburton came to Ul'dah, risking life and limb to warn us of the threat encroaching on Eorzea.
Flhaminn ...Twenty years ago that my ambition robbed him of his life. A daughter of her whole family.
To Note: Ascilia Warde Age 27; Born in the 6th Astral Era year of 1555; loses her father in 1562 At the Quest: Flowers For All. Grows into the leader of the Path of 12 Which closed in 6th Astral Era 1577 When Dalamud Fell. Which means All of 1.0 took 15 years lore wise.

Thancred Waters Age 32, if we are to subtract 20 years of time he was 12 years old at the Goobue Parade, F'lhaminn at 17.
Using other resources.
"The Circle of Knowing is formed and Louisoix Leveilleur is named its acting leader." in The Astral Era year of 1562 The same year as Warburton's Death.
Thancred was a Child alcoholic and achieved Archon Status within the same year.

Next glaring weirdness. The Cutscene when you first jump onto the Airship. Gaius remarks that Silvertear Skies happened 15 years ago. Which also occured in Astral Era 1562. Leading to Dalamud falling as noted above.
So in Game, for those who have played since 1.0
They have Met Ascilia at the age of 7; Year of 1562. And then jumped ahead 15 Years to meet her at the age of 22 which was also the time of Project Meteor, in the year of 1577 When Dalamud Fell. Then at her A Realm Reborn Age of 27 post Dalamud is Astral Era 1582.

Basically, much of 1.0's early storyline was actually bouncing in and out of the Echo, specifically others' memories of the year 1562 6AE when the Archons (namely, Yda, Papalymo, Thancred and Y'shtola) first arrived in Eorzea under directions from Louisoix. Back in 1.0, the Echo was rendered differently to how it is here in ARR - in 1.0 it was virtually indistinguishable from reality (you can still see this if you view the 1.0 opening cinema movie which is found easily enough on Youtube), and the only way you initially could tell the difference was an Echo scene begun with a subtle woosh effect and a soft gong sound. Other than that, you had absolutely no idea before Minfillia taught you how to harness the Echo at will, when it would literally ask you to use it and so there was no confusion.

Also Thancred was definetely an adult (or at least in his late teens) when he first arrived in Ul'dah - I still have screenshots of the scene in question of my old 1.0 alt that started in Ul'dah and he was clearly physically (and acted like) an adult:

https://i.ibb.co/rtDxVVy/ffxivgame-2...4-15-53-06.jpg

I'm not sure about Thancred's exact age though as it was more Gridania's 1.0 story I was taking notice of, so Professor Moose or one of the other 1.0 loremasters would be better to answer this question as they're much more knowledgable on the subject than me.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Basically, much of 1.0's early storyline was actually bouncing in and out of the Echo, specifically others' memories of the year 1562 6AE when the Archons (namely, Yda, Papalymo, Thancred and Y'shtola) first arrived in Eorzea under directions from Louisoix. Back in 1.0, the Echo was rendered differently to how it is here in ARR - in 1.0 it was virtually indistinguishable from reality (you can still see this if you view the 1.0 opening cinema movie which is found easily enough on Youtube), and the only way you initially could tell the difference was an Echo scene begun with a subtle woosh effect and a soft gong sound. Other than that, you had absolutely no idea before Minfillia taught you how to harness the Echo at will, when it would literally ask you to use it and so there was no confusion.

Also Thancred was definetely an adult (or at least in his late teens) when he first arrived in Ul'dah - I still have screenshots of the scene in question of my old 1.0 alt that started in Ul'dah and he was clearly physically (and acted like) an adult:

https://i.ibb.co/rtDxVVy/ffxivgame-2...4-15-53-06.jpg

I'm not sure about Thancred's exact age though as it was more Gridania's 1.0 story I was taking notice of, so Professor Moose or one of the other 1.0 loremasters would be better to answer this question as they're much more knowledgable on the subject than me.

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Other Weirdness: Quest Text from 2.1 Build on The Stone.
Minfilia: Let us set aside the matter of this Ascian until after we have completed our move to the Rising Stones. There is but one final favor I would ask of you before I depart.
Minfilia: I believe I mentioned before that my father was a member of the Ala Mhigan Resistance. The truth, however, is more complicated than that.
Minfilia: As far as the Empire knew, he was their spy. He maintained the deception for nigh on half a decade, furnishing the Resistance with vital imperial secrets while feeding his paymasters subtly conceived misinformation.
Minfilia: When he died some fifteen years ago, my father left behind his journal, which I have closely guarded ever since. It contains every shred of information he and his agents could steal on what they believed to be the single greatest threat to Eorzea: the primals.
Minfilia: Its wisdom has guided me through the years, though there is much within I still do not understand...
Minfilia: It is my hope that Urianger will fare better.
Minfilia: Tell him to treat it with care. It is all I have left of my father.
(Optional)
Minfilia: Please, before I reconsider, give my father's journal to Urianger.

Now Who's Right?
Either The Twins are now 21 as of Shadowbringers because F'lhaminn remarks at Quest Text: One Final Journey Warburton died 20 years ago.

I think to begin with your timeline is a little off.

If we stayed in the Astral Era, the year right now would be 1577, not 1582. 1.0 and Dalamud's fall took place in the year 1572. The Echo cutscenes in 1.0 take place in the year 1562.

F'lhaminn is just rounding up here, nothing more. Either her character decides to just round it up for some reason or the writer for that specific snippet of dialogue oopsed because everything else in the game is consistent.

The twins are eternally 16. You could maybe get away with calling them 17 due to the very few moments the passing of time is mentioned in the story outside holiday events. 21 is about the youngest Elezen NPCs appear full height - over 6ft tall, and at this point there's no way the devs are going to do away with the Simpsons time bubble and age them up.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

I'm not sure about Thancred's exact age though as it was more Gridania's 1.0 story I was taking notice of, so Professor Moose or one of the other 1.0 loremasters would be better to answer this question

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My math says ~17 for both Thancred and Y'shtola in the 1562 Echoes, fwiw.

1562 - Goobbue Incident / other 1.x Echoes
1572 - 1.x / Calamity
"1577" aka "5th Year of the Seventh Umbral Era" aka "1st Year of the Seventh Astral Era" - Start of ARR through "Today" (on paper only; you're free to decide for yourself how long it's been)

The OP timeline accidentally combines the year of the Calamity and the year ARR starts into one "1577" label, skipping 5 years and landing Thancred at 12 instead of the correct 17 and Ascilia at 7 instead of the correct 12. All presumed oddities appear to be snowballing from that one point.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

My math says ~17 for both Thancred and Y'shtola in the 1562 Echoes, fwiw.

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That would be correct since the echo sections are in a ten years prior to what was present day back in 1.0. Would we say a 17yr old is an adult? No but that's depending on some laws. The game on the other hand treats anyone that's at least 16 as an adult mostly. Unless you ask the twins parents then they're still children. Or Jullus. And yeah the devs will never pop that bubble no matter how stupid one might think it has become. Though I just give all of those who were on the 1st a different soul age than their physical age. As yes Thancred's souls spent 5 years on the source. Urianger and Y'shtola their respective 3 and 2 with the twins their 1year and let's not try to figure out G'raha's soul age.

Mostly because the dialogue given by Gaius said Silvertear was 15 years ago and F'lhaminn remarks that Warburton died 20 years ago. So 32 minus 20 is 12

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Originally Posted by AraliaMerrith

Mostly because the dialogue given by Gaius said Silvertear was 15 years ago and F'lhaminn remarks that Warburton died 20 years ago. So 32 minus 20 is 12

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Build on the Stone, other quests (including Gaius's speech you mentioned), and the lore books correctly cite the date of Warburton's death as 15 years ago, so I think it might actually just be the case that the stand-out F'lhaminn line is a simple text bug.

"20 years ago" was 1557, the year Ala Mhigo fell to the Empire. Minfilia says Warburton was a spy for "half a decade" (1557 to 1562). I would posit that between that 5-year gap and the 5-year shift between 1.x / ARR, something got phrased poorly.

(This is why I never knock the time bubble. We have enough confusion without time moving, lol. I vote for the blank check approach.)

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Build on the Stone, other quests (including Gaius's speech you mentioned), and the lore books correctly cite the date of Warburton's death as 15 years ago, so I think it might actually just be the case that the stand-out F'lhaminn line is a simple text bug.

"20 years ago" was 1557, the year Ala Mhigo fell to the Empire. Minfilia says Warburton was a spy for "half a decade" (1557 to 1562). I would posit that between that 5-year gap and the 5-year shift between 1.x / ARR, something got phrased poorly.

(This is why I never knock the time bubble. We have enough confusion without time moving, lol. I vote for the blank check approach.)

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Or 5 years has passed since ARR and they snuck it in

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Originally Posted by AraliaMerrith

Or 5 years has passed since ARR and they snuck it in

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Considering that there's only 1 single source suggesting that and everything else in the game contradicts those couple of lines, I'm going to have to disagree here.

Koji Fox himself said that the game takes place in a Simpsons-style time bubble where it's always the same year and everyone is always the same age.

People might get upset with that and say that there's no way all of it can happen in just 1 year or point out moments when someone mentions something happening 3 months or 1 year ago, but this is just the nature of an MMO. The game is constantly getting new players and more content loaded on top and to keep everything consistent for the writers and preventing the need to age up child characters all over the game including the twins, it's just always 1577 6AE/1 7AE.

I just think of each zone being frozen in time for their expansion.
Outside of specific quests, Ul'dah takes place during ARR, Ishgard takes place during HW, etc.
There's no need to worry about NPCs not aging because it's understood to be a slice of time.
The twins are really the only standout that feel weird to never age when a significant amount of time has clearly passed, but even there, they can get away with it until it becomes unbelievable that less than 5 years have passed since Elezen don't hit their growth spurt until 20-ish.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Considering that there's only 1 single source suggesting that and everything else in the game contradicts those couple of lines, I'm going to have to disagree here.

Koji Fox himself said that the game takes place in a Simpsons-style time bubble where it's always the same year and everyone is always the same age.

People might get upset with that and say that there's no way all of it can happen in just 1 year or point out moments when someone mentions something happening 3 months or 1 year ago, but this is just the nature of an MMO. The game is constantly getting new players and more content loaded on top and to keep everything consistent for the writers and preventing the need to age up child characters all over the game including the twins, it's just always 1577 6AE/1 7AE.

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A really credible source to me, you don't forget an action like that.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Considering that there's only 1 single source suggesting that and everything else in the game contradicts those couple of lines, I'm going to have to disagree here.

Koji Fox himself said that the game takes place in a Simpsons-style time bubble where it's always the same year and everyone is always the same age.

People might get upset with that and say that there's no way all of it can happen in just 1 year or point out moments when someone mentions something happening 3 months or 1 year ago, but this is just the nature of an MMO. The game is constantly getting new players and more content loaded on top and to keep everything consistent for the writers and preventing the need to age up child characters all over the game including the twins, it's just always 1577 6AE/1 7AE.

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And for some clarification on this, it's not quite literally 'the entire game takes place within the same year', it's more 'they write loosely as if no specific time passes'. Outside of in-game events which are their own weird thing, they just write it with no explicit statement of the passage of time. It's more or less up to you how to read that, if you think the events of the MSQ take place in one really wild week or if there's significant gaps between expansions or whatever, but the developers just never state timeframes or milestones. I'd compare it less to the Simpsons, which has to grapple with background technology and celebrity figures changing, and more to Futurama which has no such problems, and can just go 'all this happens and Fry's still nebulously late 20s' with nothing really standing too weird about that.

In contrast, Elder Scrolls Online made the... interesting choice to explicitly set the entire game and all of its ten years of content within one specific year, 2E 582. Evidently, a very eventful year.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

And for some clarification on this, it's not quite literally 'the entire game takes place within the same year', it's more 'they write loosely as if no specific time passes'. Outside of in-game events which are their own weird thing, they just write it with no explicit statement of the passage of time. It's more or less up to you how to read that, if you think the events of the MSQ take place in one really wild week or if there's significant gaps between expansions or whatever, but the developers just never state timeframes or milestones. I'd compare it less to the Simpsons, which has to grapple with background technology and celebrity figures changing, and more to Futurama which has no such problems, and can just go 'all this happens and Fry's still nebulously late 20s' with nothing really standing too weird about that.

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That was specifically Koji's words so I guess take them as you will.

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Originally Posted by Koji Fox

Before I move onto question two, allow me to veer off onto a little tangent: there have been several threads about Hydaelyn’s timeline not matching up with Earth’s. If it has been two years since the release of the game, why is it still 1572 in Eorzea at the time of patch 1.23? This is a dilemma faced by a lot of MMOs. To allow everyone that joins the game, regardless of when they do, to experience the full story, there simply has to be a stoppage of time. Okay, not really a stoppage, but more of a time bubble in which a span of about a year is contained. This is why that for the duration of 1.0, Eorzea was in a perpetual 1572. Think of it as the same thing that’s happening in the Simpsons. 23 seasons gone and Lisa’s still 8, Maggie’s still a baby, and the gummy Venus still tastes oh, so sacrilegious.

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Originally Posted by Question asked from Anwyll years later

Long ago, you mentioned that 1.0 took place in a “Simpsons Time Bubble.” Are we still in a bubble? Or does time move now that we know Patch = Canon?

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Originally Posted by Koji

It’s still a bubble; you have to have a bubble. There are players joining in Heavensward that are starting at the beginning. The bubble’s just gotten bigger.

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Futurama actually does reference the passing of time and occasionally mentions which year it is. It's always 1000 years into the future and the first episode was year 3000 but they've had whole episodes around the 3012 election during 2012 and other things parallel to current events.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Futurama actually does reference the passing of time and occasionally mentions which year it is. It's always 1000 years into the future and the first episode was year 3000 but they've had whole episodes around the 3012 election during 2012 and other things parallel to current events.

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We live in an age where "Simpsons predictions for 2025" find their way to Youtube, complete with stupid "Simpsons predicted Apple VR goggles". Movies have featured some form of VR and goggles since 1983 (Brainstorm=1983, Brazil=1985, Disclosure=1994, Johnny Mnemonic=1995). The list spans 40+ years at this point.

I would find it odd if a Japanese gaming company, with Japanese developers, mentioned parallels to "current events". Particularly elections in a foreign country. "Current" events which, by definition, become non-current shortly thereafter.

Thankfully.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

That was specifically Koji's words so I guess take them as you will.

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When people use that quote to 'prove' the "span of one year" thing is canon, they invariably overlook two things:

1. The span of one year is how long the time contained within the bubble condenses into despite rightfully taking longer, and it is probably only a year in the first place because they mentioned in Stormblood that it had been a year since the rebellion in Doma.

Secondly, it's something he said during Stormblood, where a year still sounded like a plausible timespan for the events. If he repeated it today it might come with a lot more emphasis that the events are not actually all intended to fit within the designated year of time bubble.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

I'm not sure about Thancred's exact age though as it was more Gridania's 1.0 story I was taking notice of, so Professor Moose or one of the other 1.0 loremasters would be better to answer this question as they're much more knowledgable on the subject than me.

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https://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/anni...?rgn=eu&lng=en

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Perpetually passing by, Thancred had drifted in and out of Minfilia's life for years. He had been seventeen when they first met—five years her senior. Or so he claimed . His carefree demeanor believed many secrets, not least his skill with a blade. The manner in which he had battled the creature which slew her father was proof of that. Of course, he preferred a subtler approach when circumstances allowed.

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Atleast 17 when he met Ascillia/Minfillia

which makes him atleast 27 in 1.0 and atleast 32 in ARR

so since he was "Sharlayan" due to Louisoix's timely retrieval of the Thancred as a kid in Limsa when he tried to relieve the poor Elezen man of his money pouch.... yeah the lady's man was an adult. With 16 being the age of adulthood there.

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Recent graduates of the Studium, the twins were now sixteen summers old─old enough to be considered of age in Sharlayan society. And so, although he opposed his children's planned journey, Fourchenault had not sought to bar their way.

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https://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/anni...?rgn=eu&lng=en

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Originally Posted by Iscah

When people use that quote to 'prove' the "span of one year" thing is canon, they invariably overlook two things:

1. The span of one year is how long the time contained within the bubble condenses into despite rightfully taking longer, and it is probably only a year in the first place because they mentioned in Stormblood that it had been a year since the rebellion in Doma.

Secondly, it's something he said during Stormblood, where a year still sounded like a plausible timespan for the events. If he repeated it today it might come with a lot more emphasis that the events are not actually all intended to fit within the designated year of time bubble.

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It should rightfully take longer.

- The death of the emperor and the rebellion mentioned being a year ago despite the news being broken to us in-game seemingly shortly afterwards.
- The ~3 month travel time to Kugane on the very fastest chartered "merchant" ship and the boat rides to Sharlayan and Tuliyollal that would be smaller distances, but slower boats.
- The on-foot traveling and plot happening.
- Downtime in between world-shattering events.

But deciding on a timeline is probably going to cause complications down the road in regards to aging up main story characters like Alphinaud and Alisae who would reach their adult height at age 20-21 which would then cause problems if you do stuff out of order like Coils. Plus there's the many children NPCs running around like important ones such as Khloe or background ones such as the playground in Gridania. The writers would also have an extra layer of complexity when trying to writer future stories to remain consistent to the timeline.

While they definitely took the lazy route of "just ignore a timeline and let plot happen", I don't think having a strict timeline necessarily suits an MMO.

We know that at least a trip from Limsa to Sharlyean is a fortnight and no I don't want to have another debate on if 16days is really a fortnight or not. But yes Thancred, Y'shtola and Estinien are all 32 at the start of ARR Urianger is 29 and F'lhamin is younger looking than she should be.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

While they definitely took the lazy route of "just ignore a timeline and let plot happen", I don't think having a strict timeline necessarily suits an MMO.

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I wouldn't call it the 'lazy option' when I don't think there's any better option. Sometimes, the winning move really is not to play.